Today was awesome!! The weather was fabulous! It was sunny! Okay, enough with the exclamation points already!

Anyway, today *was* fabulous and sunny and soap sales were good. The market had lots of people wandering around, and lots of them stopped and bought soap. I got to say hi to Betsy, who also bought soap. Everyone wave at Betsy!

Ooh, and I traded soap for a massage (true fabulousity) and for one of my friend Nancy’s super-cool new dichroic glass bug pins. They are very, very cute, and if you need a Mother’s Day gift you better get down to the market tomorrow and get something for her. Shop local! Yeah!

Today was such a good day that I am going back tomorrow, my first Sunday this year. I usually don’t go on Sundays, but since I’m working for myself for the time being… the siren call of potential earnings is calling me back tomorrow. I hope the weather cooperates.

I’m starting to get into a groove of what sells and what doesn’t. It pains me to admit that the scents that are my favorites are not what sell the best… so I have to resist the urge to make them all the time in favor of some disciplined soapmaking – if I keep bestsellers in stock all the time, sales will continue to go up as the tourist season comes on.

Let’s talk about fear. I am not going to make it, either in my soap business or Jafra if I don’t address my fears and get over them.

So many of my fears I think are rooted in how I was raised, how our society expects women to act, how my personality works. I fear the sting of rejection. This goes all the way back to being 5 years old and too scared to go up and ask the other kids if I could jumprope with them, all because they might say no. I have to acknowledge that asking the question “Will you do X for me” where X is schedule a Pamper Session or buy my soap or join my consultant team is absolutely key to succeeding in business and if I can’t do it, I might as well find another job. I HAVE to get over my fear of rejection and ask.

What accompanies the fear of rejection that stops me from asking the question? Fear of offending, fear of intruding in someone else’s “space” (by telephone, for example), fear of being perceived as a nuisance. It’s Little Mouse syndrome – I just want to be a little mouse in the corner, not bothering anyone, not getting in anyone’s way or attracting any attention whatsoever. This is connected to the way girls are socialized to be “pleasers” – as women and girls, we should strive to please people, not offend them, says society. This socialization is deadly for women and it’s something those of us who suffer from it should try to get over.

Then there’s the fear of failure. If I don’t try, I can’t fail. Um, duh Claire, if you didn’t even try, isn’t that a failure right there? Failure to take a chance?

I guess this also ties to the fact that I don’t like being asked the question myself because I hate saying No to people. Again, socialization – women aren’t supposed to say no, we’re pleasers darnit, and we should say yes and make people happy! At least, that’s what society says. So it makes me uncomfortable to put other women in a position where they might have to say No to me – because I know it sure makes me uncomfortable saying no. I’ve bought things I didn’t really want because I didn’t want to say no.

But other women’s hangups shouldn’t be my problem. We should all have the confidence to say yes and mean it and say no and mean it and not have these hot, uncomfortable feelings when faced with someone asking us for something.

Fears are paralyzing and they’re currently paralyzing me. I have to get moving again, I have to get over these awful fears. I want to succeed, and somehow that desire has to become stronger than the fears.

I have these calls I need to make, to family members and some to strangers. I need to do them, and I’d rather go back to the dentist for some more drilling. I had some old fillings replaced and a new cavity drilled on Tuesday.

It’s totally irrational. The worst thing anyone is going to say is no. In the case of the calls to the people I don’t know personally, the worst thing that could happen is they could hang up on me. So why do I feel like the phone is a snake that’s going to bite me? I NEED to do this, and I’m avoiding it like the plague!

I’ve always felt this way about making phone calls. It’s a fear I need to conquer, and right now I don’t think I can do it. I feel like such a dork because I’m so afraid of making some simple phone calls. Does anyone have any ideas for making this easier?

“Make Soap Day” didn’t quite work out yesterday. I fought with Quanta, trying to make it work, much to my frustration. It didn’t – DH had to fix it up for me when he got home from work. I did manage to finalize my e-newsletter for Claire Luna and sent it off to my testers. I also set up and formatted a shopping cart for DH to accept credit card payments for the wireless service we’re offering at the Activspace where Sudsy is located.

After DH got it all set up, I did manage to update my website with a bunch of new soap scents (although some aren’t all that new, I hadn’t gotten around to photographing them). I still need to photograph the new packaging for the lotion and creams…

So today is “Visit My Shrink” day AND “Make Soap” day as well as “Go to the Post Office” day. I’ll get going soon.